Your weekly re/insurance round-up, ending 9th August 2024

It's Friday 9 August, 2024

More industry results emerged this week, with Munich Re reporting improved Q2 and H1 profits, and?Lancashire’s H1 gross written premiums expanding to $1.3bn.

Both companies' strong performances were largely driven by robust reinsurance activities.

Meanwhile,?Berkshire Hathaway’s re/insurance businesses delivered a $2.3bn net underwriting result for Q2, and?Beazley recorded a record H1 profit of $728.9m despite the world's largest IT outage occurring in the period.

Elsewhere,?Hiscox Re & ILS revealed H1 growth as its combined ratio improved to 73.8%, and?Allianz saw a €3.9bn operating profit in Q2, driven by strong results in all segments.

Zurich also saw its operating profit climb to a record $4 billion in H1, marking an increase of 7% compared to the same period of 2023.

In other developments,?Lloyd’s had its financial strength rating upgraded by AM Best, as CFO Burkhard Keese confirmed the early renewal of the central fund insurance.

In parallel,?DARAG announced it is to sell its North American and Bermuda business entities to RiverStone, while?Enstar agreed to a $376m ground-up loss portfolio transfer with QBE.

It was also made known that?The Fidelis Partnership has launched a new renewables MGA called Novagen.

Turning to the key reports from the week,?Gallagher Re said that Hurricane Debby will remain a “very manageable” event for the re/insurance industry, with combined wind and water-related insured losses from the private insurance market and NFIP likely to fall in the range of $1-2bn.

Concurrently Swiss Re noted?global insured losses from natural catastrophes have reached $60bn in H1 of 2024, with severe thunderstorms, mainly in the US, accounting for 70% of the total figure.

As for the key people moves,?Aon promoted Ollie Barcock to lead Aviation Reinsurance, Global ReSpecialty, and?Howden Re expanded its cyber capabilities, adding Harriet Gruen as Head of Threat Intelligence.

We’ll continue to update you with more coverage of the major developments from this week, while also keeping up with the regular news coming out of the re/insurance industry.

We hope all our readers stay safe and well this weekend!